That is my understanding too. Zionists like Herzel were secular but the only argument available to them to justify expropriating Palestine was the religious one. This matter is discussed in the Zionist Connection by Alfred Lilienthal, if I remember correctly.

The original Zionists were mostly secular and saw Zionism as akin to the nationalist movements popular in Europe at the time. They would trot out the "God promised" argument when it served their purposes. Jabotnisky's revisionist Zionism may have had a religious basis.

The chutzpah in that statement is increased by the fact that British colonialism was used to facilitate Zionism, not the other way around. The Balfour declaration was the basis for this support. The Zionists view a government or politician that supports them 99% of the time but mildly dares to criticize them 1% of the time as stabbing them in the back.

If a church opposes U.S. imperialism, does it become marginalized by the press and cease to be "mainstream"?

Usually, the way things work is an issue is promoted by the grassroots and later taken up by the leadership. I don't know enough about the WCC to judge its politics. I think you need to know something about the mission of an organization and its rules to make judgements.

"When has organized religion ever stood in opposition to the elite controlled political economy? "

What about the Quakers, the Mennonites, or the Catholic workers movement? MLK took a stand against the Vietnam war. Religion involves too many people to make such sweeping statements. Bear in mind that the religious left, like the rest of the left, gets ignored by the U.S. press.

If someone moves to a country and eventually becomes a citizen there following the local procedures and with the consent of the native society that is one thing. However, moving to a territory under the auspices of an occupying power (Britain) and then conspiring to dispossess the local inhabitants and destroy their society is an act of colonialism and a crime.

I think the question here is what constitutes "large". The U.S. is such a large country that if 1% of Americans support BDS, that will be about 3 million people. Even if only .1% support BDS, that is still 300,000 people.

Instead of trying to fix the economy or end the wars, Congress is giving us this crap to deal with.

I guess the law this resembles is the material-support-for-terrorism law which defines "terrorism" and "material support" so vaguely that someone who gives to a charity which then supports, say, a Hamas-run social service would be guilty of "material support". The law may not be broadly applied at the moment but it could be in the future. Still, I have to wonder how the BDS law would work, given the large number of people supporting BDS.

No, this was a definition for "Arab", and it was very offensive. This happened about 20 years ago. My sister saw something similar in a North Korean dictionary once. Americans and Europeans were defined as something along the lines of "imperialist running dogs".

American Jews such as Rabbi Elmer Berger and the American Jewish Committee opposed Zionism after the Holocaust. In 2017, when the realities of Zionism are becoming clearer, many Jews are turning away from this racist, colonial ideology.

Many Palestinians are jailed by Israel based on "confessions" extracted by torture. Others are jailed without charge in "administrative detention". Lately, Israel has been especially going after Palestinian children. Meanwhile, in Israel's racist justice system, a Jewish settler can be fined 80 cents for murdering a Palestinian.

When someone else is running your life you have had it. I think this is what Barghouti is getting at. The United States, Europe, and Israel have been trying to select the Palestinian leaders and spokespersons for decades and what they must accept; they must give up the right of return, they must not have demonstrations, they must not have BDS, and so on. On television, Palestinians are not allowed to speak for themselves, but Americans or Israelis speak for them. Palestinians as a whole should decide such questions. The world gets to criticize Israeli settlements because they are illegal.

"moral obligations don’t exist"

Moral obligations came before the law. The law exists to give moral obligations teeth.

Normally, the U.S. government can be counted on to call any leader they dislike "Hitler". Given the inflation in U.S. rhetoric, I suppose this day was inevitable. Now, not only are they "Hitler" but they are "worse then Hitler". What will be the next rhetorical escalation?

My understanding is that Syrians are divided about supporting the government. Sabra does not speak for all Syrians. Supporters of the Syrian government/Assad may or may not be "trolls", depending on their reasons behind their support. Personally, I agree with Khalek that ISIS is a U.S. creation and do not consider her a "troll". I consider her both honorable and with views worth hearing.

If this isn't a blacklist, I don't know what is. The same logic has been used by Zionists in the past to try to prevent speakers from making presentations about Palestine. A better response by UNC SJP would be to sponsor a discussion about Syria between the different viewpoints. The reporting in the U.S. on Syria is as biased as it is on Palestine. Censorship in the United States is a real problem and UNC SJP is making the problem worse with this cancelation.

It is very disappointing that this group does not seem to understand the most elementary principles of scholarship and academic freedom. In academia, the existence of a variety of viewpoints is supposed to be the normal state of affairs. This diversity is dealt with by allowing the various schools of thought to defend their positions in public forums.

I think Bernie Sanders in principle did win the Primary. Hillary Clinton used fraud and scams to steal the election from him. Electronic voting results are easy to alter and voters were disenfranchised in various ways. Sanders was consistently ahead of his rivals in the polls

The pattern with immigrants is that they usually look around for a downtrodden minority to step on as a way to elevate their status in the new society. So it is for Sharansky and I imagine other immigrants to Israel.

Opinion polls show that Sanders is a stronger candidate then Clinton. Both Clinton and Trump have very high negatives. Moreover, the 56 to 42 figure needs to allow for the fact that the media establishment is helping Clinton and hurting Sanders.

The same argument could be used against liberals that support the racist, war-mongering state of Israel. As for your list, you seem unaware that Israel discriminates against Palestinians and African refugees on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. Your comment seems to imply that Palestinian human rights are unimportant because, you claim, they discriminate against "gays, women, minorities and all religions".

"then a freshman congressman who had heroically knocked off a Republican in 2004 over the incumbent’s Iraq War vote"

This is actually completely wrong. Van Hollen's predecessor, Rep. Morella, was one of six Republican House members who voted against invading Iraq. I used to live in his district and was involved in the antiwar movement at the time.

On a slightly related topic, I recently came across a crazy interview with Cynthia Mckinney where she describes a pledge members o fcongress are required to sign by AIPAC:

Actually, a similar line came out of the Bush administration in response to some suicides at Gitmo. They even wanted to call the suiciders "terrorciders" but for some reason this term never caught on. I suppose this is not that surprising given the number of Likudniks in the Bush administration.

Rudoren could also try a "hard to get" strategy and give Netanyahu bad coverage until he grants an interview. The fact he won't give her an interview reveals his understanding that the NYT is "safe" and doesn't require hasbara.

Is Oren the worst ambassador ever? I wonder who will be his replacement? He certainly fits in with the crazy nonsense that goes on in the U.S. these days. In a country that supports the TPP while burning down its own economy why not support to the hilt a country with an ambassador and government that is constantly badmouthing and undermining us?

This sounds like a sniper version of Zero Dark Thirty. It also illustrates the disconnect between Americans and the violence of the U.S. war in Iraq. When the D.C. sniper was terrorizing Washington he was a monster. When Kyle snipes Iraqis its just fine. Kyle sounds like Ilario Pantano, another "hero" who committed his own war crimes in Iraq.

A few months after the invasion, I read an account by a fraternity member about the return of a sniper from Iraq. This fellow was joking with the other fraternity members about shooting Iraqis for sport.

Somehow I don't think Fingerhut's controversy is going to go away. If you can't argue "Our opponents claim X, Y, and Z which is wrong because of A,B,C" your prospects are not very good. Fingerhut isn't even trying to argue his case.

The Obvious question here is what about the holocaust? Suppose instead of killing everybody the Nazis had simply expelled the "undesirables". Would that have been O.K. for Cohen? I wonder what David Duke thinks of this book? Given the fuss Zionists have made about Duke's approval of anti-zionist literature I would like to know.

As for the "advanced culture" this is the movement that brought terrorism and hotel bombings to the Middle East. Maybe advanced culture consists of not stooping to ethnic cleansing. This "advanced culture" canard is a reprise of the "making the desert bloom" hasbara which was a tissue of lies.

Salaita made a similar statement in one of the tweets that was used to justify his firing. As I recall, some years ago Yale was considering hiring Prof. Juan Cole but then got cold feet over his politics.

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